Tag Archives: women’s rights

Sandra Fluke, if you don’t know the name by now, is the Georgetown University law student who courageously testified before congress to advocate for healthcare plans to cover the cost of contraception. I use the word “courageous” to describe her because although I support everything she testified to, and am a consumer and advocate of contraception, have been for years, I never would have testified in front of congress about it! Primarily, I would be overcome by worry about what everyone would say. I am even having some resistance writing this blog post now! This speaks to the upbringing I received in my Catholic home, and my view of the private and personal nature of birth control and sex. Then there’s the worry of what if my employer sees it? What if my future employer sees it? Worse still, what if mom sees it?! As you can see, there are various reasons why I would not have had the balls to testify in front of congress on this issue.

Now consider Sandra Fluke. Thanks to YouTube, her testimony before congress will surely follow her the rest of her life. Soon she will graduate law school and start interviewing at potential firms. She won’t have to wonder if they know about her. They certainly will. But what’s so embarrassing about it anyway? Do we really think people aren’t having sex? Particularly young, smart, college educated, ambitious young ladies? Bouncing a baby on your lap gets in the way of studying for the bar. Just saying. I congratulate and admire Sandra Fluke for being brave and honest and advocating for this women’s health issue.

This testimony may have likely gone under the radar had it not been for Rush Limbaugh, who has other thoughts on the matter. He is all over the news right now for his personal attack on Sandra Fluke. He repeatedly called her a “slut”. In addition, he called her a “prostitute” and said that he wanted her to make sex tapes and post them online so he could watch them. He also speculated that she only had a problem paying for contraception because she was having “so much sex.” This makes me laugh out loud. He’s such an imbecile. Because of those comments, there are petitions going around to take his show off the air, advertisers are puling out of his show and he is in hot right now, to say the least. This morning I read an article saying something like “Rush has said some awful things in the past, but this is beyond pale”. Hmmmm. Is it really though? One of the things I hate about extremists from the right and the left is what Bill Maher refers to as “fake outrage”. He is usually talking about the fake outrage coming from the right, but the left is guilty of fake outrage too. I think more so now because of a fight fire with fire mentality that is happening in the current polarized political atmosphere, but are we really offended? Rush Limbaugh is a hypocritical, colossal jackass with a history of drug addiction and douchebaggery that is almost inconceivable. Why do we give any power or airtime to the hate and foolishness he spews on the regular? And although I find his attack on Ms. Fluke totally gross and bile, I am not surprised or offended at his idiocy, or use of the word slut. It’s what he does for a living. He’s paid to be a douche and I could really care less about what he says. Sorry, no fake outrage from Project Dre. But it did get me thinking. Who uses the word slut? Seriously? I haven’t sincerely used that word since like junior high. I wondered, what does it even mean?

I turned to Urban Dictionary, which gave me three useful definitions. The first and most popular definition of a slut, according to Urban Dictionary, is a woman with the morals of a man. Shit. If that’s true, it’s my mother’s worst nightmare. I am a slut. But I sort of already knew that. Moving on.

The second definition offered this humorous description for the word slut: someone who provides a very needed service for the community and sleeps with everyone, even the guy that has no shot at getting laid, and everyone knows it. She will give him a sympathy fuck either because someone asked her to or she just has to fuck everyone she knows. These are great people, and without them, sex crimes would definitely increase. Thank you Slut, wherever you are.

But the third definition is the correct one in my view, as it defines the word slut as a derogatory term referring to a sexually promiscuous person, usually a female.

So now that I’ve defined it, I’d like to let Sandra Fluke and all of you know that I’m taking the power away from the word slut. I am not offended by its use and feel sorry for those who feel the need to label other women with such judgment. It makes me think the person using the word isn’t getting laid, because they probably aren’t. For whatever reason, sexually empowered women make men and other females extremely uncomfortable. I know this from personal experience; however, evidence of this is seen in the underlying reason for this blog post. A young lady stands before congress to advocate for contraception, and her name is dragged through the mud and it’s been in the news for days.

The use of contraception is the mark of an intelligent, thoughtful, proactive person. Man or woman alike. In fact, it’s my belief that more people should use contraception. Check out our welfare lines or the statistics of children living beneath the poverty line in our own country, and I think you will agree with me. Imagine the relief on the economy and our healthcare system if there were fewer breeders. I mean no insult or judgement by the use of the term breeders. I’m just saying…

Lastly, if you are a slut, congratulations! You’re sexy and you know it and you are in damn good company. Other famous sluts include Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Elizabeth Taylor, Sofia Loren, Anais Nin, Jean Harlow, and if the first definition offered by Urban Dictionary is true, Me! Its like historian and Harvard University professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich famously said, “Well-behaved women rarely make history.”